P. K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows

by Caroline Lawrence

  I said, “To warn me about what?”

  “That all this time you have been working for Frisco Fat Cats.”

  METTIE BROUGHT CORNBREAD and took Ping’s order.

  When she left I said to Ping, “Start from the beginning. What are you doing here at Curry’s Warm Springs Hotel?”

  “Being detective,” he said. “After I find out it was Stewart who hired you, I investigate him. Friend of mine is waiter at International Hotel. He is Chinese. They do not know he understands English. He tells me Stewart meets with two men from San Francisco. They are fat rich men. They tell him go to Carson to squash the bill.”

  “The Frisco Fat Cats!” I said. “But Stewart did not hire me. A Celestial courtesan with no feet hired me because she loves Jace.”

  Ping snorted. “Opal Blossom loves only money. I could have told you that. Anybody in Chinatown could have told you. Stewart hired her to hire you, so that you would report Jace’ s movements. Jace is lobbyist.”

  Ping had some trouble saying this last word but I got the gist.

  I stared at Ping. I reckon if my face were expressive it would be showing Expression No. 4—Surprise. “You mean Opal Blossom does not love Jace?”

  Ping took a piece of cornbread and repeated, “Opal Blossom loves only money.”

  I thought back to our meeting. I remembered how Opal’s hand had not trembled, but mine had: a sure sign that I cared more about Jace than she did. Also, she was more interested in my reports about the Legislature than my news of Violetta. Why had I not seen it before?

  I said slowly, “So William Morris Stewart hired Opal Blossom to hire me?”

  “Yes,” said Ping. “Stewart is fighting on side of Frisco Fat Cats. But Jace is on side of small miners.”

  A strange picture rose up in my mind: William Morris Stewart—a tall man with a beard the size of a sagebrush—leading an army of cats in stovepipe hats against Jace and a passel of doll-sized miners.

  Ping said, “Stewart thought if you follow Jace you would say who he plays poker with.”

  I had a sudden mental picture of Jace playing poker with the legislators & being charming & letting them win as he pleaded the case of the small miner.

  I shook my head. “But I didn’t tell anybody who Jace was playing poker with.”

  “No,” said Ping. “You gave Stewart something better. You gave him reports of legislature with notes on who was bribing whom, etcetera.”

  “Dang!” I said. “I thought I was sending Opal Blossom boresome reports of the legislature. But I was giving her exactly what she—I mean Stewart—wanted.”

  I put my half-eaten piece of cheese back on the plate. Ping pounced on it.

  I said, “William Morris Stewart betrayed me. And I betrayed Jace. I have been giving Stewart valuable information.”

  “Yes,” said Ping, with his mouth full of cheese. “You write good reports.”

  I looked at Ping. “You did good detective work,” I said. “Better than me.”

  “You are good detective,” said Ping. “But I very good detective, too. You need me as partner.”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “I reckon I do. You were clever to find me here.”

  “I did not know you would be here,” said Ping. “I was hungry. Smell food when the stagecoach stopped. Got off for supper. I thought you would be at boardinghouse in Carson City.”

  Mettie put down a plate of bacon and beans, and another of cornbread.

  Ping tucked in.

  “P.K.,” growled a deep, familiar voice. “Praise the Lord I have found you!”

  I turned around on my chair to see a big ugly man with a pockmarked face and eyes that pointed different directions. “Stonewall,” I said. “Did you stop for supper, too?”

  “No,” he said. “I came looking for you. We were worried sick.”

  I said, “We?”

  He said, “Me and Jace. We wondered where on earth you got to. You been gone a whole week.”

  I said, “Jace cares about me? I thought he was mad at me.”

  Stonewall pulled up a chair and sat beside Ping.

  “Jace was mad at you for about five minutes. Then he got over it,” rumbled Stonewall. “You have been real useful to him here. He liked your reports.”

  “See?” said Ping through a mouthful of food. “Everybody like P.K. reports.”

  “Stonewall,” I said. “This is Ping. Ping, this is Stonewall.”

  They nodded at each other.

  “Stonewall,” I said. “Is it true that Jace is secretly lobbying for the Corporation Bill on behalf of his friends? I thought he was just here in Carson to gamble and get himself a nice Toll Road Franchise.”

  “Shhhh!” said Stonewall, looking around. “Jace has got a reputation to maintain.”

  I said, “But his reputation is as a Gambler, not a Champion of the Miner.”

  “Yup,” said Stonewall. “And he wants to keep it that way.”

  I stared at my coffee. Everything I thought had been wrong. I still did not have a clew about how people worked.

  “Dang,” I said to myself.

  Without having been asked, Mettie brought another cup and filled it with coffee.

  Stonewall drank half of it in one gulp.

  Ping stood up suddenly. “I will return,” he said. “Must use outhouse chop, chop!”

  When he had left us alone, I lowered my voice. “Stonewall,” I said, “is it true that Jace’s whole family died a few years ago?”

  Stonewall swallowed hard & stared down at the table.

  Then he said, “When I first met Jace, he went to church every Sunday with his wife and children. His wife was sweet and they were good kids. Two boys and a little girl. He used to say he had Heaven on Earth.”

  “What did Jace do?” I asked. “For a living, I mean. Was he a gambler then?”

  “Nah,” said Stonewall. “Back then he had a little farm in Mississippi. A few horses and cows. Couple of acres of cotton. Didn’t have no slaves, only workers. Treated them good. I came to him aged twenty or so. Run away from home. He took me in.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Jace once told me that if you are silent then that helps the other person talk.

  Stonewall said, “His eldest son was about your age when the fever took him.”

  At a nearby table some men laughed at a joke.

  “His little girl was the next to die,” said Stonewall. “Two days later, on Christmas Eve.”

  I cradled my coffee. That freshly filled cup warmed my cold hands.

  “Christmas Day,” said Stonewall, “the good Lord saw fit to take Jace’ s wife and little Bobby, too.” Stonewall started to say something else but he could not get it out. At last he spoke in a strange, thick voice, “I have never seen such grief. He used to be cheerful, but since the day they died he has never laughed and hardly even smiled. I tried to tell Jace they were in a better place but he would have none of it. Still won’t.”

  I STARED AT MY COFFEE in its cup. My eyes were all prickly and there was a big lump in my throat.

  “After Jace lost his family,” said Stonewall, “he sold the farm and took the money and headed West. Invited me to join him. But everyone said we would soon be fighting for our freedom so I said I would stay. He said he didn’t have no fight left in him. Wished I had listened. That battle at Shiloh almost made me lose my Faith.”

  Stonewall had just said more in five minutes than in all the time I had known him.

  “Why did Jace become a gambler?” I said. “He is rich, so it’s not just for the money, is it?”

  Stonewall pondered this for a moment. Then he said, “I reckon Jace plays to forget. He told me once that when he is playing poker, the past and the future ain’t there. Only the moment he is in.”

  I nodded. It was like what my Indian ma had said.


  Stonewall drained his coffee & glanced around. Then he leant forward.

  “Don’t you never tell Jace I told you,” he said to me, “but I reckon you remind him of his own kids.” His ugly face contorted into a frown. “The fact that you ain’t nothin like them is good, too. He don’t feel he is betraying their memory by feeling kindly towards you.”

  “Does Jace feel kindly towards me? Someone told me he said I was as bothersome as a deer tick.”

  Stonewall frowned at the table for a moment, then shook his head. “He didn’t say that about you. I said that. About Violetta. He didn’t like that one bit. Specially as I said it to her face.”

  “So Jace likes me?”

  “Course he does. Long as you don’t crowd him, spy on him or tell him what to do.”

  “One thing puzzles me,” I said to Stonewall.

  “Yeah?”

  “How can Jace love Violetta?”

  Stonewall shook his head. “At first he didn’t. He was just using her as a smokescreen so people like Stewart would think he was in Carson for a Toll Road, not the Corporation Bill. But she worked her charms on him real good. I reckon Love trumps Brains.”

  “But she is not True to him,” I said. “Can’t he see that? A woman ought to be True to Jace and not Play him False. Especially not with someone like Jack Williams.” I added this last under my breath but Ping had just returned from the outhouse and he must have heard me.

  “Jack Williams?” he said, pulling up his chair. “They still have not caught killer.”

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “Jack Williams,” he replied. “Someone shot him last week. His funeral was yesterday.”

  I FELT SICK. Was it me that had killed Jack Williams? Had the tiny ball from my Smith & Wesson finally migrated to his heart and ended his life? Could I put another “desperado notch” on the grip of my seven-shooter?

  I said, “Where was he shot?”

  Ping said, “In Niagara Saloon.”

  “No, I mean where in his body? In his heart?”

  “He was shot in his back,” said Ping. “Couple of times with thirty-two caliber ball.”

  I felt a surge of relief, then a thrill of dread.

  I said, “When? When did it happen?”

  “A few days ago,” said Mettie, who had come to refill our coffee cups and overheard the last bit. “I think I have a newspaper,” she said, and returned with it a few moments later.

  I took Tuesday’s copy of the Daily Territorial Enterprise and stared at the front page.

  A DESPERADO KILLED—

  A SHOOTING AFFAIR

  The first-class A No. 1 murder of Jack Williams in Virginia City last night is creating a little stir among the police authorities here. Jack Williams, who has killed three or four men here and also in California, was out on bail for robbery at the time. The noted desperado was shot and instantly killed at half-past eleven last night, while engaged in a game in Pat Lynch’s saloon. Pistols were fired in the front of the room to attract attention, whereupon the rear door was opened a few inches and the fatal shot fired from a .32 caliber pistol wielded by a hidden assassin. Information leads the authorities to suspect a clue to the murderer may be found among the genteel class in Carson City.

  “‘The genteel class in Carson City’!” I quoted, and looked up at my two companions. “It must have been Violetta! Have they arrested her yet?”

  “What do you mean?” said Stonewall.

  I said, “I reckon Violetta killed Jack Williams. She must have hired someone to fire pistols in the front of the saloon while she shot him from the rear.”

  Stonewall’s ugly face contorted itself into a frown. “She didn’t even know Williams,” he said.

  “Yes, she did. I saw her sparking him up at Pray’s Sawmill last Sunday. He got rough with her and she told me a man like that should be put down. She told him she was coming back here to Carson, but I reckon she followed him to Virginia City to get her revenge,” I added.

  Stonewall put down his fork. “It is true that she was out of town for a few days. We reckoned she was scouting toll roads and got caught in the snowstorm. Jace was mighty worried till she got back. He is even more worried about you.”

  “I am pretty sure Violetta killed Con Mason, too,” I said. “She must have snuck out while Jace was asleep. And I’ll bet she pushed Abram Benway out of that window.”

  Ping looked up. “You got evidence?” he said.

  I counted on my fingers: “Con Mason and Jack Williams were both killed by a thirty-two caliber bullet, threads from her gown found at the scene of Mason’ s murder, she and Benway were speaking together right before he fell to his death.”

  Ping nodded.

  I stood up. “Stonewall,” I said, “we have got to warn Jace. This is the evidence of her malfeasance you have been wanting.”

  Stonewall put his head in his hands.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He looked up at me, his bug eyes filled with tears. “Jace and Violetta are getting married tonight,” he said, “and then they are going to Sacramento. That is why he sent me to find out about you. So he could leave with his mind at ease.”

  “We have got to stop him!” I cried. “And if we are too late we have to make them get a divorce.” When I said the word “divorce” the Lord sent a lightning flash of inspiration into my brain.

  “Wait!” I said. “Up at the sawmill Jack Williams told Violetta to ‘Obey your husband!’ And she told me she had ‘one last husband to divorce.’ Also, she had some papers she wanted him to sign. Then there was that rumor that she was married to a Desperado. I bet that Desperado was Jack Williams. She rode up to Lake Bigler on the pretense of scouting out toll roads but her real reason was to meet him in secret and to get him to sign the divorce papers. When he refused, she pretended to go back to Carson. But instead, she followed him to Virginia City and divorced him by means of a ‘leaden messenger of death’ discharged from her Bosom Deringer.”

  “‘Leaden messenger of death’?” said Stonewall with a frown.

  “A bullet,” I explained.

  “Bosom Deringer?” said Ping.

  “A little gun she keeps between her bosoms,” I said. Then I said, “Ping, will you go back to Virginia City and see if there is a record of Jack Williams recently getting married? If so, that proves she is a Black Widow.”

  I was surprised when Ping did not argue but stood up. “All right,” he said. “I just came down to see you are still alive. I got lots of cases up there anyway.” Then he pointed to the window. “There is Virginia Stage now. I go. Chop, chop!”

  When Ping had left, I said to Stonewall, “We have got to warn Jace about Violetta. I am sure she intends to kill him once she has married him.”

  Stonewall looked at me & then looked down at the table. “Jace said I could come live with them in Frisco after the honeymoon,” he said. “But he told me if I kept complaining about her then he would never have anything to do with me again.”

  I nodded. “He said something like that to me, too. But I realized something when I was trapped in the snowstorm. You can’t abandon your friends and family. I was too late once before, but I am danged if I am going to give up without a fight. We have got to warn Jace that if he marries Violetta he might end up dead.”

  Stonewall stared at his empty coffee cup. “I reckon Jace can take care of himself, ” he said.

  “So you won’t go into Carson City with me to warn him?”

  “Sorry, little pard,” said Stonewall. “But I can’t.”

  CHEEYA AND I RODE alone through the violet twilight. The strange half light of a winter dusk made the snow look deep blue and I could just make out the wooden railway tracks that carried stone from the quarry. By the time I reached Carson it was dark. Even before I reached the Plaza I could see an infernal glow lighting up the night
sky.

  As Cheeya and I got closer I saw flames and little black figures dancing around them like the imps of hell. The supporters of the Corporation Bill were tossing old boxes & barrels & suchlike and making a big bonfire right outside the Great Basin Hotel.

  They were still building it up but I could already feel its heat at 100 feet remove. I swung off Cheeya & led him into the stables. The other horses in their stalls were restless, probably from the smoke. I closed the south- and west-facing windows, to block out the smell and the shouts of the crowd. I guessed all the stable hands had gone over to take part in the fun.

  I needed to find Jace to warn him for the third & hopefully final time about Violetta. But Cheeya was my best friend and he came first. I took his saddle off & brushed him & covered him with a blanket & made sure he had mash & fresh water. He nuzzled me and butted me gently towards the stall door as if to say, “Skedaddle!”

  I skedaddled, making sure the stable doors were shut behind me.

  Coming closer to the fire I saw about 200 people in that 80-foot-wide road, many of them known to me. The town was blanketed with snow but that fire in the middle of Carson Street was so big that it had made a muddy circle that nearly filled up the street.

  There is something about fire. It was entrancing and so was the music. A brass band had assembled & they struck up “Battle Cry of Freedom,” a song which always makes me want to march off to war. Standing there in front of the flames, my face was hot and my back felt cold.

  Over by the brass band I saw a moving arc of blue fire. Someone had set up a trestle table as a bar in the thoroughfare outside the Magnolia Saloon & the bartender was making a Blue Blazer.

  I thought, “This place is almost as wild & sinful as Virginia City.”

  I tore myself away from the entrancing bonfire & music and hurried three blocks south to the St. Charles Hotel. I had to find Jace.

  “Mr. Montgomery and Mrs. De Baskerville have checked out,” said the curly-haired night clerk.

  My heart sank. I was too late!